Weird and wonderful vocabulary from around the world

How come only German has a word for 'a person who leaves without paying the bill' (Zechpreller) or that Albanians need 27 words for moustache? A compelling new book uncovers the globe's most weird, wonderful - and meaningful - words. John Walsh picks his favourites

Sunday 25 September 2005 23:00 BST

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Learning a foreign language is, of course, the surest and fastest track to becoming familiar with another culture. But the words themselves offer hundreds of revealing clues to the preoccupations of that culture. Everyone knows that Inuit-speaking races can call on 30-odd words for snow. Adam Jacot de Boinod first became entranced by language when he discovered 27 words for "moustache" in an Albanian dictionary - and another 27 for "eyebrows". A world of bushy machismo and stolid dignity sprang to life before his eyes. He began hanging out in second-hand bookshops, looking for foreign dictionaries and the tiny revelations contained therein. He made lists of his favourite "words with no equivalent in the English language" - like, say, tsuji-giri, a Japanese word from samurai days meaning, "to try out a new sword on a passer-by" (thanks a bunch, Toshiro), or the stoic German term Torschlusspanik, meaning "the fear of diminishing opportunities as one gets older".

His book is destined to be the Eats, Shoots & Leaves of the autumn. Where else could you discover the gradations of bowing in Japan, from eshaku (a slight bow of about 15 degrees) to pekopeko, "bowing one's head repeatedly in a fawning or grovelling manner"? Or find that there are 18 words for "you" in Vietnamese, depending on whether you're addressing one person or several, young or old, formally or informally? Or learn that the French invented the word ordinateur in order not to have to say "computer", because con is slang for vagina and pute slang for whore, the combination of which is literally unspeakable in haunts of the chivalrous.

Most intriguing of all, however, are the words whose meanings seem ludicrously over-precise - like the Persian word nakhur which means "a camel that won't give milk until her nostrils have been tickled", or the meaning of tingo itself.

These are more than funny foreign vocabularies; they are tiny windows into the way other people live, and the obsessions that drive them. We may be amused by their lexicon of everyday words - but we can be certain they'd be equally amused by our vocabulary of "multi-tasking" and "sound-bite" and "over-sharing". By our unguarded linguistic displays shall we be known.

'Agobilles' to 'zhengrong' and lots in between

THE BODY

MATA EGO Rapa Nui, Easter Island

Eyes that reveal that someone has been crying.

NYLENTIK Indonesian

To flick someone with the middle finger on the ear.

KUCIR Indonesian

A tuft of hair left to grow on top of an otherwise bald head.

DIDIS Indonesian

To search and pick up lice from one's own hair, usually when in bed at night.

PANA PO'O Hawaiian

To scratch your head in order to help you to remember something you've forgotten.

NGAOBERA Pascuense, Easter Island

A slight inflammation of the throat caused by screaming too much.

O KA LA NOKONOKO Hawaiian

A day spent in nervous anticipation of a coughing spell.

ANGUSHTI ZA'ID Russian

Someone with six fingers.

PAPAKATA Cook Islands Maori

To have one leg shorter than the other.

AKA'AKA'A Hawaiian

Skin peeling or falling off after either sunburn or heavy drinking.

KARELU Tulu Indian

The mark left on the skin by wearing anything tight.

LOVE AND BEAUTY

MAHJ Persian

Looking beautiful after having a disease.

ZHENGRONG Chinese

To improve one's looks by plastic surgery.

BAKKU-SHAN Japanese

A girl who looks as though she might be pretty when seen from behind, but isn't when seen from the front.

MAMIHLAPINATAPEI Fuengian language, Chile

A shared look of longing between parties who are both interested yet neither is willing to make the first move.

POMICIONE Italian

A man who seizes any chance of being in close physical contact with a woman.

QUEESTING Dutch

Allowing a lover access to one's bed, under the covers, for a chit-chat.